Locations with multiple televisions, such as sports bars, face the difficulty of providing sound to their patrons. The multiple televisions, which are often tuned to different television channels, project different sounds based on the television channel. Accordingly, it may be difficult or impossible to hear a particular television. This is further complicated by the fact that users desiring to watch different televisions may be in relatively close proximity to one another. Even televisions projecting the same sound may be undesirable if the televisions are positioned in such a way that the sounds do not reach a viewer in a perfectly synchronized manner.
One solution for this problem is to turn the sound off on each of the televisions and to turn on closed-captioning, thereby visually providing speech in the form of text associated with the corresponding television. This is not an ideal solution however, as it requires the viewer's full attention and detracts from the viewing experience. This solution also omits other sounds such as music and environmental sounds (e.g., referee whistles, game buzzers, and crowd noise). Furthermore, for those who are visually impaired or seated a distance from the television, it may be impossible to read the closed-caption text.
Accordingly, what is needed is an improved audio/video system for locations with multiple televisions.